Roll of flexible plastic bags in partible sequential continuity,the individual bags having respectively echeloned sheet plastic closure facilities



May 27, 1969 PAXTON 3,446,344

ROLL 0F FLEXIBLE PLASTIC BAGS IN PARTIBLE SEQUENTIAL CONTINUITY, THE INDIVIDUAL BAGS HAVING RESPECTIVELY ECHELONED SHEET PLASTIC CLOSURE FACILITIES Filed Aug. 24, 1967 INVENTOR. JER E H. PAXTON ATTORNEY.

United States Patent ROLL 0F FLEXIBLE PLASTIC BAGS IN PARTIBLE SEQUENTIAL CONTINUITY, THE INDIVIDUAL BAGS HAVING RESPECTIVELY ECHELONED SHEET PLASTIC CLOSURE FACILITIES Jen-e H. Paxton, P.0. Box 2098, Yakima, Wash. 98902 Filed Aug. 24, 1967, Ser. No. 662,951 Int. Cl. B65h 55/00; B65h 75/02; B65d 33/24 US. Cl. 20659 5 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A roll of flexible plastic 'bags in partible sequential continuity, the individual bags of which are provided with sheet plastic closure facilities the material of which is substantially thicker than the film comprising said bags and in which said closure facilities are in echeloned or laterally staggered relation with each other to distribute the thickness of said closure facilities relatively uniformly throughout said roll.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS Reference is made to my co-pending application Ser. No. 629,441 filed Apr. 10, 1967 on a plastic bag with integral closing facility. That application discloses a flexible plastic bag which has integrated therewith, a suitable distance below the open mouth of the bag, a Kwik Lok type bag closure which is thus made available to the customer after he has approximately filled the bag with merchandisc, and leaving only a neck portion free for closing the same, for bunching the neck together enclosing this by the application thereto of said Kwik Lok closure. The preferred embodiment of the invention disclosed in said copending application has said bag closure secured to the front face of the bag approximately on the vertical middle line thereof.

A full use of the invention disclosed in the said copending application is found to require that this be cheaply produced and delivered to the point of use which means that it must be packaged in stacks or rolls, each of which has a substantial number of bags united therein such as a hundred bags to a package. A difliculty met with in the use of the invention disclosed in said co-pending application is that it does not bundle well owing to the fact that the closures are in sheet form and are of a material which is substantially thicker than the film of which the bag is made so that in a bundle or roll of a hundred bags, the thickness of the bundle or roll at the point where said closures are applied is excessive.

Reference is also made to my co-pending application filed herewith on a flexible plastic bag stack, individual bags of which are provided with respectively echeloned sheet plastic closure facilities, said application being directed to the solution of the problem above noted of packaging the aforesaid invention in stacks of one hundred bags each.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the invention The provision of facilities for use by customers in selfservice markets in bagging articles picked up by them in the market which they desire to purchase so that these can be readily identified, priced and the entire transaction recorded on a cash register strip by a checker representing the merchant.

Description of the prior art Until recently kraft bags made of relatively heavy paper have been universally used in self-service markets to facili- Patented May 27, 1969 tate the customers collecting merchandise and delivering it to the checker for identification and pricing and the rendering of an account to the customer of the prices of the individual articles and the total due the merchant for the entire lot of merchandise purchased.

The stilfness of these kraft bags has made them very serviceable in this field for this characteristic tends to give the merchandise collected therein a flat base at the bottom causing the bag to stand upright when set on the counter. Thus the checker could readily look down into the mouth of the bag and inspect and identify the merchandise contained therein. This characteristic also facilitated the handling of the bags of merchandise in packing them into larger bags or cardboard boxes for delivery to the customer.

The advantages in using kraft bags for the collecting of merchandise in a self-service market has been discounted, however, by the discovery by many merchants that they are losing considerable quantities of merchandise through shoplifting which is facilitated by the use of the kraft bag. For instance, the practice has been found to be not too uncommon of putting a piece of expensive merchandise, such as a T-bone steak, in the bottom of a kraft bag and then covering it up with potatoes or other merchandise sold by weight at a much lower price than the steak. The checker, being generally in a hurry, does not detect a deception of this kind with the result that merchants are sulfering substantial losses of merchandise.

Efforts to use transparent flexible plastic bags for the collection of merchandise by customers in self-service markets has heretofore been defeated by the fact that such bags do not support the merchandise in a column as is the case in using kraft bags so that the plastic bag filled with merchandise must generally always be laid on the counter and when this is done the merchandise tends to escape from the open neck of the bag.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The primary object of the present invention is to provide a roll of flexible plastic bags in which the individual bags are equipped with Kwik Lok type bag closures as set forth in the aforesaid co-pending application, with the exception that the closure applied to each bag in the roll is applied in a position in which said closure is uncovered by, or what is known as in echoloned relation with, the closure on the bag next thereabove or beneath in said roll. As illustrated in the preferred embodiment disclosed herein, in which the present invention is embodied in a roll of one hundred bags, the amounts which said roll is thickened by the application of said closures to the individual bags is reduced by the present invention to at least of the thickness which would be added to a roll by closures located on the bags uniformly as shown in the aforesaid co-pending application Ser. No. 629,441.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a roll of flexible plastic bags comprising a preferred embodiment of the present invention, this view illustrating in full lines the Kwik Lok type closures applied to the front faces of the two end most bags of the roll with said closures in echeloned relation to each other which illustrates the manner in which said closures are applied to all the bags in said roll without substantially thickening the diameter of the roll and uniformly spreading throughout the roll what thickness is applied thereto by the provision of said closures on said bags.

FIGURE 2 is a plan view of a tubular web used in forming the roll shown in FIGURE 1 with this web extended in flattened form to illustrate how the closures applied to successive bags in said roll are staggered laterally relative to each other in sequences of seven bags.

FIGURE 3 is a fragmentary perspective view illustrating the manner in which the neck of a bag removed from said roll may be readily closed by a customer by application thereto of the Kwik Lok type closure provided on said bag;

FIGURE 4 is a side elevational view of one of the bags after this has been removed from said roll while the same is still empty.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring specifically to the drawings, the invention is there shown as embodied in a roll of bags 11. The roll 10 is preferably manufactured from a tubular web 12 made of thin polyethylene film or similar plastic material, by transversely sealing and perforating said web at uniform intervals as the web passes by a given point in its linear travel towards another point where said web is formed into the roll 10 by winding said web on a core 13 which is rotatably mounted on a shaft 14. The transverse sealing operation forms a seal 15 closing the bottom of one of the bags 11 and the perforating operation produces a line of perforations 16 adjacent said seal 15 which weakens both layers of the tubular web 12 along the line of these perforations so that the lowermost of the bags in the web 12 may be separated from the next bag thereto by jerking on said lowermost bag.

At a suitable station provided between the point where said web is transversely sealed and perforated and the point where said web is wound up to form roll 10, a Kwik Lok type bag closure 17 is applied to each one of the bags produced in said web by said sealing and perforating step. This closure is preferably attached by the application of one or more spots of glue 18 to one end of said closure and to said bag so the closure points upwardly as shown in FIGURE 1 as the web 12 is being wound up to form roll 10 and while it is beingunwound to dispense bags 11 therefrom. The free end of each closure 17 is provided with a bag closing aperture 19, communication with which is had through a narrow opening 20 in the adjacent edge of the closure.

As clearly shown in FIGURES 1 and 2, the closures 17 thus applied to bags 11 in the roll 10 are applied in successively echeloned relation with each other so that in the roll 10 these closures will be distributed throughout the roll so as not to introduce an undue thickness into any particular portion of the roll. In the preferred embodiment of the invention disclosed in the drawings, the lateral shifting of the position in which the closures 17 are applied to successive bags 11 of the roll 10 is such that each individual echelon of said closures covers a series of seven bags and then the position of the closure on the next following bag shifts to the opposite side of the bag and another echelon of seven bags starts.

In each closure 17, the narrow opening 20 divides the material at that end of the closure into a pair of jaws and the closure is made of a stiff but springy material such as sheet polystyrene or the like so that jaws 25 may be readily spread apart when applying the free end of the closure to a bunched neck 26 of a bag 11 as shown in FIGURE 3 causing the jaws 25 to spread apart and come together again on the opposite side of the neck so as to trap the same in aperture 19 and thus close the bag.

Following the manufacture of the bag roll 10 by the method above described, the roll is removed from shaft 14 and packaged for shipment to a place of consumption. This generally will be a supermarket which will provide suitable fixtures at various places in the market for pivotally mounting a roll 10 by trunnions extending into opposite ends of the core 13 so that a customer may readily supply himself with one of the bags 11 by seizing the lowermost bag and giving it a jerk which will readily tear the web 12 along the line of perforation 16 at the top of this bag and thus free the bag for the customers use.

Each such bag, of course, will be provided with one of the Kwik Lok closures 17 in one of the seven positions in which these are applied to said bags which positions are disposed along a transverse line and in which the closure is thus always at a uniform distance from the open upper end '26 of a bag thus separated from the roll 10. The upper portion 27 of the bag which lies between the upper end 26 thereof and the closure 17 is referred to as the neck portion of the bag and is the portion shown in FIG- URE 3 which has been bunched together and inserted through the opening 20 into the bag neck closing aperture 19 of the closure 17.

I claim:

1. A roll of flexible plastic bags for providing individual bags one at a time, each of which bags is provided with a sheet plastic closure for use in closing said bag, said roll comprising:

an endless tubular web of thin flexible plastic material such as polyethylene film, said web being provided with a transverse heat seal and a transverse line of perforations which are placed relatively close together and are provided at uniform intervals in said web to divide the same into plastic bags in partible sequential continuity, theseparation of one of said bags from said web with the rupture of the portions of the web remaining unsevered at one of said lines of perforation effecting the opening of the adjacent end of the bag thus separated from the web, the portion of said bag adjacent said opening being referred to hereinafter as the neck thereof; and

a series of flat sheet bag closures, one for each of the bags in said roll, which are secured respectively to the outer faces of said bags, each of said closures having a bag neck confining aperture formed inwardly from an edge thereof and connected with said edge by a narrow opening thereby producing a pair of jaws in said closure located on opposite sides of said opening, said closure being of stiff but springy material so that said jaws may be sprung apart by pressing the same against the twisted neck of a bag on which it is provided so as to cause the jaws to pass around said neck and trap said neck in the aperture of said closure,

said closures being applied to the respective bags of said roll with adjacent closures echeloned transversely in relation to each other in said roll so as to diffuse said closures throughout said roll and prevent a distortion of the roll by a concentration of said closures in any one portion thereof.

2. A flexible plastic bag roll as defined in claim 1 wherein:

said flat sheet bag closures are secured respectively to outer faces of the bags of said roll at points adjacent the opposite ends of the closures from the ends having a bag neck receiving opening, and with said closures facing upwardly from their points of attachment to said bags.

3. A flexible plastic bag roll as defined in claim 1, wherein:

said closures are secured to outer faces respectively of the bags of said roll with the points of attachment between the closures and said bags spaced approximately a uniform distance from the edges of said bags at the open ends of the latter.

4. A roll of flexible plastic material for providing individual bags one at a time, each of which bags is provided with a closure facility for use in closing said bag, said roll comprising:

an endless tubular web of thin, flexible plastic material such as polyethylene film, said web being provided with a series of uniformly spaced transverse heat seals and transverse lines of perforations one of which is placed relatively close to each of said seals to divide said web into plastic bags in partible sequential continuity, the separation of a bag from said web by the rupture of the portions of the web remaining unsevered along one of said lines of perforation efiecting the opening of an adjacent end of said bag, the portion of said bag adjacent said open end being referred to hereinafter as the neck thereof; and

series of bag closure facilities, secured to said web at spaced intervals therealong with one of said closure facilities secured to said web a substantial distance downwardly from each of said transverse lines of perforations whereby, when a bag is separated from said web by separating the latter transversely along the latter line of perforations, said bag so separated is already provided with a closure facility, located near the end of the bag thus opened, by which the neck of the bag may be readily closed to confine merchandise placed in said bag.

5. A roll of flexible plastic bags as defined in claim 4, wherein said closure facilities are in echeloned relation relative to each other in said roll so as to diffuse said closures throughout said roll and prevent distortion of the roll by concentration of said closures in any one portion thereof.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,128,192 2/1915, Smith 22962 3,098,594 7/ 1963 Williamson.

3,107,842 10/1963 Guilfoyle 229-62 3,225,918 12/1965 Mines 20658 JOSEPH R. LECLAIR, Primary Examiner.

US. Cl. X.R. 229-62 

